FREED Lucy Connolly released from HMP Peterborough after 11 months in jail over deleted tweet

The wife of a Conservative councillor who was jailed for posting a racist tweet in the aftermath of the Southport attack has been released from prison after serving less than a year of her sentence.

Lucy Connolly, who was sentenced to 31 months in October 2024 for inciting racial hatred, was freed from HMP Peterborough on Wednesday morning, the Telegraph reported.

Connolly, married to Tory councillor Raymond Connolly, was prosecuted after posting on X just hours after three children were murdered in Southport by Axel Rudakubana.

Her post read:

“Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the ba***rds for all I care… if that makes me racist so be it.”

The message, viewed more than 310,000 times before it was deleted after three-and-a-half hours, was deemed by prosecutors to be “threatening or abusive” material likely to stir up racial hatred.

She pleaded guilty at Birmingham Crown Court and was handed a 31-month sentence — a punishment critics branded “disproportionate” and “two-tier justice”.

Her husband Raymond campaigned against what he called a “cruelly long” jail term, but Connolly’s appeal was dismissed in May.

Read more from Birmingham.

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